Inheritance of Dexamethasone Hypertension and Glaucoma

The dexamethasone hypertensive response was studied in patients with glaucoma and in their families. The genetic nature of the response was validated in parent-offspring comparisons. It was shown that glaucoma does not represent a homogeneous single group with respect to the dexamethasone hypertensive response and that it could not be described exclusively by P^HP^H, instead it showed in addition P^LP^H and P^LP^L as well. Open-angle glaucoma with hypertension showed similar genotype distribution as that without hypertension; this distribution differed markedly from that of the normal eye and included a greater frequency of P^H. Studies in the normal eye of patients with glaucoma secondary to contusion angle recession revealed a significantly greater frequency of P^H and suggested that the development of this glaucoma was dependent upon the genotype of the individual with respect to P^L,P^H. A hypothesis was offered that open-angle glaucoma is a polygenetically determined disease and that one of the allele pairs involved is P^L,P^H. This was generalized to include the development of glaucoma secondary to contusion recession.